Silent Apartheid and exercising your franchise
When one reads the Declaration of Independence — “All men are created equal”, and then further reads the Constitutional amendments for voting rights, it seems pretty straight forward — One man, One vote. So, why are voting rights so complicated? Every four years, we keep revisiting this conversation of voting rights, more specifically voter suppression.
Prior to the Civil war, there were two distinct camps: Federal and Confederate states on two different ideological spectrums. Eventually, this was reconciled and voting rights given to everyone today as long they are 18 years old. However, a parallel system of voter suppression of various kinds has evolved in different states that mostly targets minority participation. The schemes used are sophisticated and constitutional in many cases. However, the intent is voter suppression. I call this Silent Apartheid in America.
We are going through the Covid-19 pandemic and nothing is normal anymore. This includes exercising our franchise to choose our President. The most prudent thing would be for everyone to vote my mail in order to keep us all safe. But votes are being suppressed in myriad ways: disinformation, states changing the rules — adding burdensome requirements, scrubbing lists, revoking rights, and changing rules at the last minute in regards to when and where one can vote etc.
Silent Apartheid has become a serious issue today as we approach a point where the demographics do not favor the Republican party. President Trump has made this all about race. This causes parties to label politicians with racist labels, this invokes emotions on all sides. This can never lead to any rational conversations that get us to solve these problems.
Recently, I have been involved in getting out the vote using Text Banking with Resistance Labs and Next-gen America. I think voter roll expansion and reducing voter apathy are potential solutions. Voter apathy is quite common when the extremes of the two parties dominate the conversations. However, this will take sustained efforts over many election cycles to overcome and build the next generation of voters and increase participation. Only then politicians will find it difficult to stem the tide, ending the silent apartheid.
